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Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

2025-10-31 21:30:12

Inspiring icons that caught our eye: interface, illustrative, signage, 3D, and more.

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)
Get featured in Icon Spotlight! Share your best icon designs or creative uses of Streamline icons using this form. Spotted something awesome from others? Send that too. We’re always on the lookout.

🖥️ Interface icons

Klar Iconography by Studio Mirror

Setting icons by Luca

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)
Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

Media icons by Monoform

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

Muse Group Icon Kit by Vitaliy Kapustyanov

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)
Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)
Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

Fun icons by Rapha

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

Kipe App Icons by Shinas P for Stead

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

A sneak peek to Wonder icons by Anton Stallbörger

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)
Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

UI icons by Sava Stoic

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

Pixel icons by Seb Cornelius

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)
Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

Databrick icons by Jordon Cheung

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

Empty state placeholders icons by Virgil Pana

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)
Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

Map icon by LuckyMoo Studio

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

Human icons for Linear by Adrien Griveau

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

🎨 Illustrative icons

NYC icons by Tou Yia Xiong

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

UI Isometric icons by Praha

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

Rambler icons by Sasha S

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

Expressive Organic Pictogram Marks by Deep Patel

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

Playfull icon set for editorial project by Justina Leisyte

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

Venture Academy Icons by Maxim Durbailov

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

Ed-tech illustrative isometric icons by Praha

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

Iconography for Studio Proactive by Deoné Rabé

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

🪧 Signages & Wayfinding

Wayfinding system for new LUX MED facility in Gdynia by Blank Studio

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

🔆 Symbols & Labels

GW Agency Logos and Icons by Kevin Craft

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

Symbolic icons by Sava Stoic

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

🎲 3D Icons

Adorable icons by Rapha

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

🏃 Animated Icons

Animated icons by Javier

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Halloween animated icons by Mohamed Chahin

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8 line animated icons by Seb Cornelius

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Morphing icons by Michael Nowak

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⚡️ Join the next Icon Spotlight!

Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)
Icon Design Spotlight (October 2025)

Submit your best icon designs (or creative use cases featuring Streamline icons) and get featured in our monthly showcase.

Submit to be featured →

👋 And that's a wrap!

The icon design community never ceases to amaze us. Each month brings fresh creativity, and we’ll be back with more handpicked projects to spark your inspiration. ✨

Missed a past edition? Explore the Icon Spotlight posts.

10 Best Design Inspiration Websites for Creatives (2025)

2025-10-21 17:10:17

10 Best Design Inspiration Websites for Creatives (2025)

Creative blocks happen, and they’re certainly not easy to get out of. Whether it’s an icon set or full on web design, creating something you’re a hundred percent proud of can sometimes not happen in the first few minutes. 

Besides stepping away from your work to restore some sanity, gaining perspective from elsewhere can get you back into the creative zone. Inspiration comes when you know where to look for it. Luckily, we’ve compiled a list of websites for design inspiration for every kind of creative out there.

10 Design Websites for Inspiration in 2025

Platform

Best For

Type of Inspiration

Figma Community

Editable design files & components

Hands-on UI, systems

Behance

Full project breakdowns

Conceptual, process-oriented

Dribbble

Visual design snippets

Aesthetics, trends, micro UI

Pinterest

Mood boards, themes

Conceptual, mood-setting

Streamline Blog

Icon Sets & Illustrations

Icon design, Design perspective

Awwwards

Award-winning web design

Innovation, animation, web aesthetics

Landbook

Landing page designs

Layout, UX structure

SiteInspire

Practical web design

Clean, well-planned web design

Mobbin

Real app screenshots

Mobile/web UI patterns, user flows

Muzli

Design news + inspiration feed

Trend spotting, curated discovery

1. Figma Community

10 Best Design Inspiration Websites for Creatives (2025)

Best for: Inspiration from community-made templates, plugins, and widgets

Getting inspiration from an online community is one of the best ways to spark creativity. Figma Community is where designers share templates, plugins, and widgets. You’ll find plenty of free and paid resources to explore. It’s a helpful place to see how others solve design problems or structure their files.

You can browse design systems, UI kits, and animations made by real users. It’s great for learning new techniques or getting a quick boost of inspiration.


2. Behance

10 Best Design Inspiration Websites for Creatives (2025)

Best for: End-to-end project inspiration

Behance is a portfolio platform where designers share complete projects: from early concepts to final visuals. It’s widely used across creative disciplines, including web design, branding, and illustration.

You can explore full case studies that reveal not only the final designs but also the process behind them. It’s particularly useful if you want to understand how other professionals handle layout systems, typography, and presentation.


3. Dribbble

10 Best Design Inspiration Websites for Creatives (2025)

✅ Best for: Quick-hit and trendy visual inspiration

Dribbble is a community built around sharing design snippets and visual ideas. Designers often post logo explorations, interface mockups, and branding experiments, offering a look at what’s trending in digital design.

It’s a great place to spot emerging aesthetics and color trends, or simply to gather quick visual references for moodboards and presentations.


4. Pinterest

10 Best Design Inspiration Websites for Creatives (2025)

Best for: high volume = more references to scroll through

Pinterest is one of the most popular sites for image posting and sharing, with about 578 million monthly active users, according to Statista. When it comes to design ideas, there are thousands of references per search term posted by anyone from design students to freelancers and professional designers alike.

Its board system makes it simple to group visuals by theme or project, while the mobile app makes it convenient to browse on the go. It’s especially helpful for building a visual direction or creative mood.

Honorable Mention: Cosmos

10 Best Design Inspiration Websites for Creatives (2025)

Cosmos offers a more focused way to discover creative references. It’s designed as a discovery engine specifically for designers and visual thinkers. You can explore content across categories like typography, UI/UX, and graphic design, as well as broader subjects like architecture or nature.

It’s a cleaner, curated alternative when you want inspiration without the noise of general content platforms.


5. Streamline Blog

10 Best Design Inspiration Websites for Creatives (2025)

Best for: Inspiration and insight for icon design

Hey, that's us 🙈 Streamline is a designer's go-to for icons and illustrations made by our team of talented creatives. Our blog (the one you're on right now) is packed with design inspiration, tips, and insights from experienced designers. If you’re working on icons, you’ll find plenty of styles and examples to explore.

If you’re working on a project and need icons or illustrations that actually fit your style, we’ve got plenty you can explore. We focus mainly on visuals: icons, illustrations, and all those little design details that make things look just right.

We also love sharing what happens behind the scenes, like how we create, what inspires us, and what we’ve learned along the way. It’s our way of helping other creatives see the craft from the inside out.


6. Awwwards

10 Best Design Inspiration Websites for Creatives (2025)

Best for: Reference from awarded web designers

Awwwards features top-rated websites reviewed by professional judges. Each project is scored for creativity, usability, and innovation.

You’ll see a mix of polished, experimental, and bold designs. It’s a great way to study what top designers are doing across industries.


7. Landbook

10 Best Design Inspiration Websites for Creatives (2025)

Best for: cool web page design with real-world use cases

Landbook is a curated gallery that highlights well-designed web pages from real businesses and projects. It’s a useful place to explore different styles and layouts, whether you’re looking for ideas for a landing page, pricing section, or “About Us” page.

You can filter by page type or industry, making it easy to find examples that match what you’re working on. Each site feels practical and polished, showing how design decisions play out in real use.

If you’re gathering ideas for your next project, browsing Landbook can help you see what works well before moving forward with a professional design.


8. SiteInspire

10 Best Design Inspiration Websites for Creatives (2025)

Best for: Clean and practical web design inspiration

SiteInspire showcases clean, balanced websites with smart design choices. It’s ideal for those who value simplicity and function. You can browse by style or industry to find polished, professional examples that show how minimal design can make a strong impact.

If you’re aiming for a polished, professional look that feels refined and functional, SiteInspire offers plenty of direction to get started.


9. Mobbin

10 Best Design Inspiration Websites for Creatives (2025)

Best for: UX patterns, mobile flow inspiration, and practical UI solutions

Mobbin is ideal for inspiration on iOS, Android & Web apps. You’d be able to go through what’s popular and what popular brands have used before. They also have a colors page where you can view trending brand colors, what color palettes worked for known brand names, and what different colors mean.


10. Muzli

10 Best Design Inspiration Websites for Creatives (2025)

Best for: daily design discovery and trend spotting

If pure spark of inspiration is what you’re after, Muzli is the browser extension to get. Muzli delivers design inspiration straight to your feed. It collects the latest trends, news, and case studies from around the web.

You can personalize your feed by style or discipline. It’s an easy way to stay up-to-date on design without searching multiple sites.

Honorable Mention: Framer Gallery

10 Best Design Inspiration Websites for Creatives (2025)

If you’re looking for a no-code website inspiration, Framer is the new platform to check out. It is an up and coming hub for designers exploring sleek, interactive, and modern design inspiration. It showcases ways to create visually dynamic and functional sites without coding. You can browse examples by category and discover trending creations on their platform.


Looking for more design inspiration?

Streamline has been designing icons and illustrations for over 12 years, led by a small in-house team of experienced designers. Recognized by Figma as the Best Graphic Resource, Streamline is known for creating a consistent and scalable icon design system that helps creatives work faster and maintain visual harmony across their projects.

Our library includes thousands of icons, illustrations, emojis, and design elements all designed to fit smoothly into any workflow. You can also try our free sets, including Guidance, Platinum, and Pixel, to explore different visual styles and see how they fit your design process.

We also share behind-the-scenes insights, design stories, and inspiration from our team on the Streamline Blog. If you’re curious about how we build and organize our collections, visit the Streamline Blog for more insights from our team of designers.

Visit the Streamline Blog to explore our process, free resources, and more design inspiration. 👇

Streamline
Learn about icon design, usage tips, pairing with typefaces, trending news, and inspiration.
10 Best Design Inspiration Websites for Creatives (2025)

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

2025-09-27 01:43:45

Inspiring icons that caught our eye: interface, illustrative, signage, 3D, and more.

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)
Get featured in Icon Spotlight! Share your best icon designs or creative uses of Streamline icons using this form. Spotted something awesome from others? Send that too. We’re always on the lookout.

🖥️ Interface icons

Tech Icon Set by Maxim Durbailov

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

Taskly Iconography by Gino van Lierop

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

Layer2 Metallic Icon Set by Habitat

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

Icons by Mike Jones for Heyo

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

Automobile icons by Kirill Panov

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

Custom Icon Set by Alexandre Naud

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

Icons for Sketch's Tahoe update by Marcelo Marfil

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Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)
Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

Concept for Instagram Icons Refresh by Tubik Studio

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

Ajax Iconography by Gino van Lierop

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

Music Icons for Clouty by Victoria Shkarupa

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

Product icons by Shaun Moynihan

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

Neon UI Symbols by Denis Lomov for Red Collar

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

Product icons by ZAAD

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

Bold & Geometric icons by Murilo Cicuti

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)
Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)
Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

Laurel Iconography by Jerónimo García


🎨 Illustrative icons

Finance Icons by Elmira Gokoryan

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

Isometric Icon set by Nendo

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

Fruit Icons by Elmira Gokoryan

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

International Credit Assessment Icons by Dragan Sukurma for Siege Media

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

😄 Stickers, Smileys, Badges

Support animals and avatars for OnlyFans by Laura Reen

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)
Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

Custom badges for Househunt app by Dmitri Litvinov

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

🪧 Signages & Wayfinding

Odido Wayfinding Icons by Gino van Lierop

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

Wayfinding System for Costero Residence by Setta Studio

SHINSEGAE Art & Science Wayfinding System by atelier dongha

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)
Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)
Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)
Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

Centro Médico San Carlos de Apoquindo Clínica Alemana by the-concept studio

Wayfinding system for Resi4Rent Romanowicza by Blank Studio

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)


🔆 Symbols & Labels

Geometric Icon Set by Agnese L

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

🎲 3D Icons

Old Microsoft Icons by Mohamed Chahin

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

UI/UX 3D Icons by Emil Norberg

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

🏃 Animated Icons

Website menu icon hover animation by Ali Nazari

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Discord icon micro-animations, discovered by Design Spells

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LED inspired icon animations by Xander

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💬 Around the corner

Back then when most icons are created in Photoshop

Photoshop Relics by Artua

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

Should we use multiple icon styles in web design?

Benjamin Oberemok notes that designers can successfully mix icon styles when guided by a brand’s overall character: “You can use icons in different styles if you know what you are doing.”

Read the full article: Using different styles of icons on a website - yay or nay?

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)


⚡️ Join the next Icon Spotlight!

Icon Design Spotlight (September 2025)

Submit your best icon designs (or creative use cases featuring Streamline icons) and get featured in our monthly showcase.

Submit to be featured →

👋 And that's a wrap!

The icon design community never ceases to amaze us. Each month brings fresh creativity, and we’ll be back with more handpicked projects to spark your inspiration. ✨

Missed a past edition? Explore the Icon Spotlight posts.

Streamline Material Icons

2025-09-04 09:05:48

Material Icons. Rebuilt and upgraded.

Streamline Material Icons

Google’s Material Icons provide a solid foundation, but they’re far from complete. Designers still end up redrawing missing icons and fixing inconsistencies, often resorting to mismatched third-party sets.

Streamline Material Icons is our solution: a professional-grade icon set that builds on Google’s system while addressing its biggest shortcomings.

Clean, consistent, and complete. Ready for modern products.

Streamline Material Icons

Built for Designers Who Need More

This isn’t just an expansion, it’s a redesign at scale. Streamline Material Icons builds on Google’s Material Symbols and takes them further, with:

  • 10,000+ total icons
  • 5,000+ icons in Line & Fill versions
  • Available now in Outlined style
  • Rounded and Sharp styles coming soon
Streamline Material Icons

Every icon is redrawn or created from scratch to match Streamline’s standards: balanced shapes, consistent look, and a cleaner overall feel.

Streamline Material Icons

Designed for Clarity, Not Complexity

Streamline Material Icons are built on a 24px grid with a consistent 2px stroke (Material’s most widely used size).

Streamline Material Icons

This isn’t just a default, it’s the sweet spot where icons stay legible, balanced, and visually clear across interfaces.

Streamline Material Icons

Modern Needs, Finally Covered

Material’s visual language is strong, but it wasn’t built for everything today’s products require.

That’s where we come in.

Streamline Material Icons adds the essentials: more icons in AI, business, security, multimedia, and other categories.

No more workarounds. No more settling.


Consistency You Can See

Some icons in the original set were too rough for real products: off-balance strokes, vague shapes, inconsistent form.

Streamline Material Icons

So, we redrew them (icon by icon) for clarity, precision, and consistency.

Streamline Material Icons

The difference is subtle, until you notice it. Then it’s impossible to ignore.

Streamline Material Icons

Made to Match the Right Fonts

Streamline Material Icons follow the same geometry and stroke logic as Google’s Material Icons. They pair best with typefaces that emphasize clarity, balance, and neutrality.

Roboto

Still the most consistent choice. Its clean forms and neutral tone align perfectly with the icon set.

Streamline Material Icons

Noto Sans

Great for multilingual products. Its structure stays close to Roboto while expanding language support.

Streamline Material Icons

Inter, SF Pro, Open Sans

Other clean geometric sans-serifs that work well. Look for open counters, even strokes, and simple forms to avoid clashing.

Streamline Material Icons

What You’ll Stop Doing

With Streamline Material Icons, your team no longer needs to:

  • Rebuild missing icons
  • Patch visual inconsistencies
  • Rely on third-party sets that don’t quite match

We’ve added 2,000+ new icons adapted from our Core, Sharp, Flex, and Plump sets and refined 3,000+ existing ones so everything aligns out of the box.

Streamline Material Icons

Use It When You Want It All

Stick with Material’s familiar look but skip its limitations. Use Streamline Material Icons when your product demands:

  • More icons
  • Cleaner geometry
  • Visual consistency across your UI
Streamline Material Icons

Great for:

  • Web & mobile apps
  • UI kits & design systems
  • Dashboards, products, and marketing visuals

Whether you’re designing for Android or building on Material principles, this is the set Google didn’t finish. But we did.


Part of the Streamline Family

Streamline Material Icons is crafted with the same care, precision, and design standards behind our Core, Flex, Sharp, and Plump sets.

It’s included in the Streamline Pro plan and available now in your library.


We’re actively expanding the set. Rounded and Sharp styles are coming soon. Have a request? Let us know what you’d love to see next.

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

2025-08-28 18:50:07

Inspiring icons that caught our eye: interface, illustrative, signage, 3D, and more.

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)
Get featured in Icon Spotlight! Share your best icon designs or creative uses of Streamline icons using this form. Spotted something awesome from others? Send that too. We’re always on the lookout.

🖥️ Interface icons

OS icons by Wojciech Zieliński

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Icons for Wayflyer by Marek Minor

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Mission KI Iconography by Sascha Elmers

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Rabbit icons by iconwerk

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

VSCO icon set by Jordon Cheung

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Icons for Alice by Evgeniy Artsebasov

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Smallbits icons by Marek Minor

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Deutsche Glasfaser Iconography by Sascha Elmers

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Simple app icons by Gavin Nelson

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Coffee icons by Nino Mamaladze

Badge icons by Illia Tverdun

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Firefox Icon System by Carlotta Govi

Vitesco Technologies Iconography by Sascha Elmers

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Monoform Icons by Monoform

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Icons by Marco Cornacchia

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Brand icons for a37 by Xander Burgess

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)
Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Massimo Dutti Icons by Forma & Co

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)
Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Vacation Icon Set by Nino Mamaladze

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Hily brand icons by Ozero Design, discovered by Daniel Sun

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Sora brand icons by Outpace Studio

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

NAVER Topic Feed Icons by Donggeun Lee

Li Auto Icons by Rei Wang

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Icon concept for ClickUp by Dmitri Litvinov

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

🎨 Illustrative icons

Investment icons by Jordon Cheung

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Thermo Fisher Icons by Emir Ayouni

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Rock Climbing Icons by Tou Yia Xiong

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Marine Theme Icon System by Maxim Durbailov

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Humdingers Icons by Becca Hand

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Corporate Illustrative Icon Sets by Adolfo Ovalles for The Digital Panda

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)
Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Infinity AI icons by Icojam

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

KOHEZIO FOODHALL Pictograms by Léane PIETRERA-FERRANDINI

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

😄 Stickers, Smileys, Badges

Miro stickers by Patswerk

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Real Estate Badges by Dmitri Litvinov

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

More Inkygoodness Community Badges by Rick Hyde

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Social Stickers by Jordon Cheung

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Daily Yolk stickers by Elmira Gokoryan

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)
Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Onboarding stickers for Stream app by Dmitri Litvinov

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

🪧 Signages & Wayfinding

Tenca Parquemet Pictograms by Javiera Infante Dussaillant

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

A. S. Loginov Moscow Clinical Scientific Center by ZLT Group

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)
Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

LHOUR Senior Town Signage by atelier dongha

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

ACC Children Signage by MAUM STUDIO

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

🔆 Symbols & Labels

Tribal Icons collection by Ethan Haveron

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Wild Pine Brand Icons by Wells Collins

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Icons by Jordon Cheung

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

🎲 3D Icons

Bolt Brand Icons by Naydine Bosman

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Blocky icons by Victor Murea

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

👾 App Icons

Trading app icons by Nick Pyl

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

App icon redesign by kilobyte (@1000kilobytes)

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

🏃 Animated Icons

Animated icons by Florian Kiem

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Glitch hover effect for icons on Headroom website, discovered by Jim Raptis

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Animated icons by Chris Halaska

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Icon animation by Drawsgood

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A comparison between no animation, opacity only animation and opacity, scale and blur animation on interface icons by Jakub Krehel

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💬 Around the corner

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

We've been sharing our latest icon experiments and updates on Twitter.

It’s become a space where we test ideas, get feedback, and connect directly with the design community.

Follow us on @streamlinehq to catch new updates and experiments as we release them ✨


⚡️ Join the next Icon Spotlight!

Icon Design Spotlight (August 2025)

Submit your best icon designs (or use cases featuring Streamline icons) and get featured in our monthly showcase.

Submit to be featured →

👋 And that's a wrap!

The icon design community never ceases to amaze us. Each month brings fresh creativity, and we’ll be back with more handpicked projects to spark your inspiration. ✨

Missed a past edition? Explore the Icon Spotlight posts.

How to Use Graphic Elements to Build Bold, Expressive Posters

2025-08-13 17:56:18

How to Use Graphic Elements to Build Bold, Expressive Posters

Graphic elements are the secret sauce of bold, expressive design. From abstract shapes to layered gradients, these components can set the tone of your entire composition. When used creatively, they do more than decorate. They communicate energy, emotion and identity.

We’ll explore how to use graphic elements to elevate your work through two hands-on poster design tutorials.

How to Use Graphic Elements to Build Bold, Expressive Posters

🧩 Tutorial 1: The Puzzle

Retro Tetris-Inspired Poster Design

I saw those retro shapes that reminded me of the tetris game, along with other retro game inspired elements and I wanted to give them a twist and play with the different angles of the tetris elements and merge them with photography.

How to Use Graphic Elements to Build Bold, Expressive Posters

Step 1: Start with the Photo

Choose a dynamic photo, cut out the subject, and apply a halftone filter to give it that nostalgic comic-book feel. Place it on a vibrant background color that complements the Tetris-inspired shapes.

How to Use Graphic Elements to Build Bold, Expressive Posters

Step 2: Add the Puzzle Pieces

Create or import retro game-style block shapes (like Tetris pieces), and scatter them throughout your layout as if they’re falling into place. Rotate and flip them to avoid symmetry and bring life to the composition.

How to Use Graphic Elements to Build Bold, Expressive Posters

Step 3: Blend the Shapes with Imagery

Now, for a creative twist: separate the sides of the blocks and insert parts of your photo into each shape using clipping masks. Apply a gradient map that matches the background for color harmony, and use perspective tools to give the shapes dimensionality.

How to Use Graphic Elements to Build Bold, Expressive Posters
💡
Bonus Tip: Use drop shadows and subtle overlays to enhance depth and simulate 3D space.
How to Use Graphic Elements to Build Bold, Expressive Posters

🚀 Tutorial 2: Code Nº12

Cyberpunk-Inspired Futuristic Design

For this poster the idea was to create a retro futuristic poster inspired by Daft Punk and cyberpunk aesthetic, and the gradient shapes work perfectly to create that feeling and use them to create that modern feel.

How to Use Graphic Elements to Build Bold, Expressive Posters

Step 1: Build the Foundation Grid

Create a grid and fill it with colorful gradient shapes. These form the background and set the tone with movement and energy.

How to Use Graphic Elements to Build Bold, Expressive Posters

Step 2: Add Your Main Character

Select a retro-futuristic subject (like a costume or helmeted figure), cut it out, and apply a grain filter to age the photo. Position it centrally for visual impact.

How to Use Graphic Elements to Build Bold, Expressive Posters

Step 3: Layer in Depth and Effects

Add abstract gradient shapes in front of and behind the character to build dimensionality. Apply a gradient map to the photo to introduce a glitch-style color effect.

How to Use Graphic Elements to Build Bold, Expressive Posters

Step 4: Bring the Sci-Fi Vibe

Incorporate glitch overlays, neon-style typography, and futuristic details like numbers or data streams across the grid squares to suggest a computer interface or sci-fi dashboard.

How to Use Graphic Elements to Build Bold, Expressive Posters

Step 5: Final Polish

Finish with light effects, grain textures, and subtle distortions to unify the visual style and complete the cyberpunk aesthetic.

How to Use Graphic Elements to Build Bold, Expressive Posters

Make visuals speak

Graphic elements are more than just background filler, they’re tools for storytelling. Whether you're evoking nostalgia with retro blocks or channeling the future through gradients and glitch, shapes, textures, and layering can transform your design from static to unforgettable.

Ready to move beyond flat design?

How to Use Graphic Elements to Build Bold, Expressive Posters

Use graphic elements to build depth, emotion, and rhythm into every poster you make.

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